HUMANS BEINGS ARE NOT THE ONLY MAMMAL TO USE HERBS

HUMANS BEINGS ARE NOT THE ONLY MAMMAL TO USE HERBS

BY BRIAN KAJENGO

The night game driver with Kruger National park Rangers taught me a big lesson which leads to do more research about African herbs and medicine.

I didn’t know that elephant dung plays a very important role to both animals and human beings.

We were just 40km away from Skukuza when we saw a leopard rolling and smearing its body with elephant dung. I was the first person to ask Ranger Sipho Gumede why the leopard smears its body by elephant dung.

Gumede explains that the leopards smear their bodies with elephant dung to reduce their body smell so that their preys could not smelly them from a distant.

“As you know elephants eat all types of plants that includes medicinal herbs from the trees they eat. That is the reason why you see the leopard smearing itself with elephant dung. Elephant dung used to treat people when they suffer from headache, backache even unnecessary nose bleeding and many other diseases.” He said.

He even told us that the traditional healers use elephant dung to treat their patients. Elephant dung is one of the powerful medicines used by the communities.

“The leopards climb trees to trace its prey from distant. If the pray smells the smell of the leopard it has to leave the area because it life is in danger. So elephant dung helps it’s to get rid of that smell. You can see different species of grazers grazing together to protect one another from predators.” The Ranger said.

Ecosystem is survival of the fittest. The predators don’t hunter they die of hunger.